Instead of a gallon of milk, Key Bank customers now can get fries with their banking trip.

This past Monday, the Bainbridge Island branch office of Key Bank moved down the street from its in-store location at Safeway to a new full-service facility behind McDonalds on High School Road.

We hope the convenience of parking and the drive-thru window will offset not being in-store, said islander Jim Orrey, branch manager.

When the doors opened Monday morning, the final touches were still being completed on the ATM machine out front and the drive-thru window in back.

But the small rectangular building, its entrance framed by an overhanging trellis, had a fresh coat of paint from the weekends work.

Orrey said the branch is planning a grand opening celebration the week of July 18 for clients and a grand opening barbecue on July 23 with a fair-like atmosphere featuring plenty of food, ice cream, activities and giveaways.

Key Bank, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, first opened up a branch on the island in 1993 inside Safeway at the Village. Orrey said customers liked the convenient location.

The new branch will allow the bank to provide a full range of services, three teller windows instead of just one, and more privacy for customer transactions. The branch opened with five employees.

The bank plans to continue to offer a full range of products for personal banking, investment and small- to mid-size businesses, of which there are many on the island.

Our focus is on the customer relationship, Orrey said. We work with them on banking-related needs and want to be there for people at a lot of different levels.

Although he has lived on the island for over five years, Orrey had been working at a Key Bank branch in Seattle. When the position on the island opened up, he jumped at the chance and came aboard in May, bringing over 18 years of financial experience.

The bank had been looking (for a space) when the lease (at Safeway) came up, Orrey said. We plan to be at this location for awhile. We want this location to work.

The Bainbridge Island branch office of Key Bank is located at 617 High School Road behind McDonalds. Hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and closed Sunday. For more information, call 842-5577.

Tina Lieu

Health centers tap Morss

Bainbridge-based Morss Medical Architecture recently was hired to design and update three facilities for Olympic Peninsula Kidney Centers and North Kitsap Family Practice and Urgent Care.

Olympic Peninsula Kidney Centers Bremerton facility will have a new design with fresh interiors to better assist patients with their dialysis needs.

In Poulsbo, a new 5,000-square-foot facility is slated to open toward the end of 2005, and the relatively new facility in Port Orchard will be updated.

For North Kitsap Family Practice and Urgent Care, Morss will redesign and expand the nursing services area to allow cross coverage and increased visual access to the exam rooms.

Morss Medical Architecture, with 30 years of medical architecture experience, is the only architecture and interior design firm specifically for medical facilities in the Pacific Northwest.

One of the firms most recent projects was the Salmon Medical Center in Silverdale, which opened in April.

Two VPs join team at AMB

Barbara Kaye has joined the mortgage lending unit at American Marine Bank.

She will serve as senior vice president and mortgage lending manager at the main office.

She comes to American Marine Bank with a 32-year mortgage banking background. Recently with Key Bank, Kaye served as vice president and west region manager of community development banking, managing real estate loan production and consumer retail activity, as well as development and implementation of mortgage sales programs.

She is a graduate of the School of Mortgage Banking at Northwestern University.

The bank also announced the appointment of Steve Touger as vice president in commercial real estate lending, also at the home office.

Touger has 25 years of experience in commercial real estate lending and banking.

Starting out with Seafirsts head office branch, he worked as a cashflow and workout analyst when the bank was acquired by Bank of America. He then decided to specialize in commercial real estate and joined Seattle Trusts commercial real estate lending group through its acquisition by Key Bank.

He moved to Rainier Bank, where he was involved in the formation of a commercial real estate adjustable rate mortgage term-loan program while underwriting a variety of commercial real estate construction and rehab loans. He remained with Rainier through its acquisition by Security Pacific Bank and Bank of America.

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